Monday in the fifth week of Easter

The Lord has truly risen

Invitation

May I draw your attention to the daily reading of the Gospel?

This invitation aims to share with you the joy of the Gospel.
Everyone, without exception,
can experience that joy by opening their heart
to the healing power of God’s word.

Available every day

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Consideration
Christians strive to speak and act in order to follow their Lord, to do what Jesus did. They do not do this for their own glory or recognition. They seek, time and again, to point to the living Lord. Out of love for Him, they do as He has shown them. The responsorial psalm ties in well with this aspiration of the apostles: ‘Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your Name be the glory’.

FIRST READING                    Acts  14, 5–18

You must turn away from worthless gods and turn to the living God.

From the Acts of the Apostles

When the Gentiles and Jews of Iconium,
together with their rulers,
made preparations to mistreat and stone Paul and Barnabas,
they,
as soon as they realised this,
fled to the Lycaonian cities,
Lystra, Derbe and their surrounding areas.
There too they preached the Gospel.
In Lystra there was a man
who had no strength in his feet and had to remain seated.
He had been lame from birth
and had never been able to walk.
Whilst that man was listening to Paul’s speech,
Paul looked intently at him
and saw that he had the faith to be saved.
So he spoke in a loud voice:
“Stand up on your feet, straight!”
The man leapt up and walked about.
When the people saw what Paul had done,
they began to shout
and cried out in the Lycaonian dialect:
“The gods
have come down to us in human form.”
They called Barnabas Zeus
and Paul, because he was the spokesman, Hermes.
The priest of the temple of Zeus-Outside-the-City
brought bulls with wreaths to the gates
and wanted to offer a sacrifice together with the people.
When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this,
they tore their clothes
and rushed into the crowd,
crying out loudly:
“Men,
what are you about to do?
“We too are human beings,
just like you.
“We bring you the Good News
that you must turn away from these worthless gods,
and turn to the living God
who made the heavens and the earth,
and the sea and everything in them.
“In times past, He let all nations go their own way,
yet He has not failed to bear witness to Himself,
by bestowing His blessings:
For from heaven He gave you
rain and fruitful seasons,
and filled you with an abundance of food.”
But even these words
could scarcely dissuade the people
from offering a sacrifice to them.

INTERLUDIUM                            Ps. 115(113B), 1-2, 3-4, 15-16

Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to your Name be the glory.

or: Alleluia.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name be the glory,
for You are merciful and faithful.
Why should the nations ask:
‘Where is the God of Israel?’

The God of Israel is in heaven,
He does as He pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.

Blessed are You, O Lord our God,
who made heaven and earth.
The heavens are the Lord’s domain,
the earth He has given to mankind.

ALLELUIA                          Col . 3, 1

Alleluia.
Since, then, you have been raised to life with Christ,
seek the things that are above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Alleluia.

GOSPEL                               John 14, 21-26

The Helper whom the Father will send, He will teach you all things.

From the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to
John

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Whoever keeps my commandments which he has received,
it is he who loves me.
“And whoever loves me
will be loved by my Father;
I too will love him and reveal myself to him.”
Judas – not Iscariot – said to Him:
“Lord, how is it
that You will reveal Yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus answered him:
“If anyone loves Me,
he will keep My word;
My Father will love him,
and We will come to him and make our home with him.
“Whoever does not love Me
does not keep My words;
the word you hear is not Mine
but the Father’s who sent Me.
“I say this to you whilst I am still with you,
but the Helper,
the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name,
He will teach you all things
and remind you of everything I have told you.”

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Laudato Si

Encyclical of

POPE FRANCIS 

On care for our common home.

105. There is a tendency to believe that “any increase in power is simply
progress; an increase in security, utility, well-being, vitality,
and the fullness of values”,as if reality, the good and the
truth were to spring spontaneously from the power of technology and
the economy itself. In fact, “modern man has not been brought up to make proper use of power”,
for immense technical growth has not gone hand in hand with a development
of man in responsibility, values and conscience. Human beings always tend to develop
a limited self-awareness of their own limits. Consequently, it is possible that today
humanity fails to recognise the gravity of the challenges it faces,
and “the possibility that human beings will misuse their power
is constantly increasing”, when “there are no standards for freedom,
but only for supposed demands of utility and security”.
Man is not fully autonomous. His freedom becomes diseased when he
surrenders to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate
needs, of selfishness, of brute force. In this sense, man is
unprotected and exposed to his own power, which continues to grow,
without having the means to control it. He may have access to
superficial mechanisms, but we can say that man
lacks a solid ethic, a culture and a spirituality that
truly set limits for him and restrain him within a clear self-control.